VX
GNO.2AIHIC
MIAGAZl E
COPYRIGHT, 1933, BY NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSOCIETY, WASHINGTON, D. C. INTERNATIONALCOPYRIGHT SECURED
WASHINGTON, THE EVERGREEN STATE
The Amazing Commonwealth of the Pacific Northwest
Which Has Emerged from the Wilderness
in a Span of Fifty Years
BY LEO A. BORAH
ON A grim 13th of November, 1851,
twenty-four white pioneers-12
adults and 12 children-disem
barked from the schooner Exactat a lonely
point on the shore of Elliott Bay, then a
virtually unexplored arm of Puget Sound.
Cheerless the new land looked, and the
women and children, disconsolate, huddled
under trees near the water's edge, while
the men scrambled to rescue their belong
ings from the fast incoming tide. As the
schooner sailed away to carry a band of
gold-seekers elsewhere, the little colony
was alone in the unknown green land of
mighty timber from which they were to
hew their homes.
One of the women, clasping her two
months-old child, sat on a log and wept.
To her the primeval evergreen forest,
sweeping up from the gray waste of the
Sound to misted heights of snow-capped
mountains, suggested only nostalgic long
ing to go back to the Illinois prairies.
Had the young mother been able to en
visage what the son she held in her arms
was destined to look upon, her tears would
have been forgotten in a dream of wonder
and delight; for that son has lived to see
the settlement of 24 grow to a city of nearly
400,ooo-Seattle.
He can say truthfully that from the
very beginning he lived off the country.
Because the colonists had brought no cattle
with them, there was no milk to give the
baby that winter of 1851, and he was fed
the broth of clams dug from the beach.
The diet must have been nourishing; for
to-day, a hale octogenarian, he still takes
active part in the affairs of the city that he
has watched spring from nothing to mag
nificence in the span of his years (see
page 135).
The story of Seattle mirrors that of the
whole Commonwealth of Washington. In
less than a hundred years the Evergreen
State has emerged from wilderness to
modern civilization, crowding three centu
ries of history into one. Spokane, largest
city of eastern Washington, with a pop
ulation of more than 115,ooo, celebrated
in September, 1931, its 50th anniversary.
The United States census of I860 found in
Washington Territory fewer than 12,000
persons; that of 1930 recorded more than
a million and a half in the State.
THE WINNING OF THE WEST STILL GOES ON
The Evergreen State is so close to its
beginnings that in parts of it frontier life,
far from being a half-forgotten memory,
is a thing of the living present. Within 50
miles of Seattle skyscrapers, hardy pio
neers are wresting their living from the
wilds of the Olympic Peninsula, just as did
their fathers of the Oregon Trail. o Many
of them must back-pack supplies to their
VOL. LXIII, No. 2
WASHINGTON
FEBRUARY, 1933